Understanding the Psychology of Exams
Do you know that understanding the brain's response during exams will give you tips to do well on them?
Illuminating the psychology or knowing how our brain rolls during exams could give us couple steps ahead than those who do not.
Within the Right Range of Stress
You heard it right! On 1908, psychologists Robert M. Yerkes and John Dillingham Dodson developed Yerkes-Dodson Law.
The law dictates that performance increases with physiological or mental arousal, but only up to a point. When levels of arousal become too high, performance decreases.
In other words, at a certain range considering an increased stress, the performance also increases. When you are about to drown yourself with the questions of the exam, one needs a certain level of stress to perform at one's best. It keeps us more focused since it is telling our body to keep keen on the situation.
Too much stress will turn the table upside down. It will compete with the cognitive operation of your brain hindering resource recall. But also, too relaxed in taking exams is not a good sign either. Finding and cooperating with the optimum stress-range works like charm!
Cramming is Everyone's Friend
On the contrary, you must unfriend cramming. I believe you already know the consequence in doing so. The processing power of the brain during cramming a bunch of notes that night before the exam will surely decrease. Basically, what one will learn are only the essentials but not the way or how did it happen. Say, math equations ... you know the operation but applying those to a problem will be a pain in the hips.
Unless you're a genius?!
Physiologically, we don’t have much use for learning things out of context. If you are engaged in more integrated learning, you are thinking about the information and how to apply it, giving you many more cues to help you recall that piece of information.
By soaking ourselves longer and understanding through the lessons effectively, surely that next exam will be our next friend.
Let's Do it One at a Time!
Studying stuffs one at a time also is a must. As we are in the modern age and everyone is connected through the internet, missing a minute or 2 from online makes us feel incomplete. This is an example of the many causes of distractions.
Our brains aren’t built to do complex multitasking. It costs mental energy to switch back and forth between tasks.
Yeah, unfortunately we are making things harder for ourselves when we switch tasks constantly. It makes our attention divided and leads to poor recognition and recall.
Choose the Right Study Setting
We all have distinct preferences on the environment where we study. I believe most of us already know that it greatly affects our exam outcomes. But let me tell you one thing we all need to note ... the more our study setting looks like the exam scenario ... the better!
There’s a theory called associative learning, which says our recall is better in a similar environment to where we learnt the information.
Obviously, an ideal setting in studying is to refrain from studying in a large dining table nor at bed but is to sit at a comfy desk imitating the exam environment. What our brain does when we are studying is it stores what we are learning and the environment we are in. It other words, the brain also stores the details about the study setting. During the exam, the environment familiarity will help to give us cues and effectively recall lesson studied. That's why, it is very preferable to copy the exam environment when we study.
Yeah, it's kinda boring since this means that we can't study while listening to hard metal rock music but for the sake of getting yourself out from the scythe of the death, it is worth it!
Everyone's Life Mantra, Sleep!
We all have this feeling of procrastination which highly leads to an overnight cramming before the exam. Well, congratulations! We just made a significant damage to our marks!
People who have less than six hours of sleep a night have a level of cognitive deficit. The actual ability to analyse things is severely impacted.
But unfortunately, most of us are not ware of it. Physiologically speaking, sleep is crucial for memory recall. There are lot of things happening in our brain when we sleep. Better have a good night sleep before exams!
But anyway, we still do things dangerously like seriously.
References:
[1] A. S. (2018, February 15). The psychology of exams: what happens to your brain. Retrieved February 25, 2018, from http://stand.uow.edu.au/psychology-exams/
[2] Yerkes–Dodson law. (2018, February 17). Retrieved February 25, 2018, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yerkes%E2%80%93Dodson_law
[3] The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica. (2016, June 10). Associative learning. Retrieved February 25, 2018, from https://www.britannica.com/topic/associative-learning
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